Why Christian Education Is Discipleship

By Nate Walker

The Small: Little Children 

The first love is only called small because, well, what is smaller than a kindergartener?  

By the time your child is a kindergartener, you’ve had several years to learn about her personality and interests, gifts and weaknesses. You know she’s a unique image-bearer of God, and you long for these qualities to blossom and flourish. In his wisdom, God has given parents a singular love for their own children that mirrors the faithful care and attention he gives to us. What a beautiful thing. Though our culture has either devalued children or else gone too far in idolizing them, Christian realism about our children’s faults shouldn’t diminish in the least the value we see in them and the good we want for them. It’s a reflection of our Father’s goodness toward us when we as parents have such great love for such small things as our children. 

The Great: God’s Kingdom 

Christians throughout history have not let this singular love for our children be the only love that shapes our vision for their education. The small must be paired with the great. Education grossly fails if it only dotes on the child or indulges the child’s desires for autonomy. Those charming little kindergartners must be brought from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. They must be trained as faithful and useful servants of the Most High God. 

The Christian Heritage of Education 

History shows that at every key step in the growth of God’s kingdom, the education of common people has been an essential component. Whether it was the prolific book production of the early church, the monasteries that converted Western Europe and brought learning to the barbarians, the cathedral and court schools under the education reforms of Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, the universities of medieval Europe, the many schools during and after the Reformation that brought literacy to the masses so they could read and understand the Word of God for themselves, or the missionary schools of the last century that have brought learning to people of every nation to help lift them out of poverty and empower them to transform their communities: Christian education built the Western world and has brought the love and light of Christ to every nation through missions. 

Christian Education Is Spiritual 

Why have Christians pursued this education-based approach to being and building God’s kingdom? 

Jesus made education central to his plan for world transformation: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded” (Matt 28:19–20). 

Jesus’s plan is simple: baptize and teach. If we believe in the lordship of Jesus over all of life, then the Great Commission is not just about obeying Jesus in “spiritual” matters but seeing every area of life and learning as a spiritual matter and, therefore, all of education as an experience of discipleship. 

Christian Education Is Discipleship  

All education is also discipleship. 

Jesus tells the church to disciple the nations, but who is currently discipling the children of the American church? Unfortunately, it is not the church.  

Secular government schools and the onslaught of media content are given far more formative hours in the lives of Christian children than the church. We have experienced a massive hemorrhaging of Christian children from the church. Statistics say that as many as two-thirds of children growing up in the church have left by the time they are adults, and Christians bemoan the loss of cultural influence they experience in modern society. 

We might be tempted to blame the unbelieving culture around us for this. More honest reflection would lead us to consider that the American church has lost her heritage of civilization building through worship and learning. Maybe we’ve narrowed the faith to simply being about going to heaven when you die. Or maybe we have not appreciated how thoroughly the lordship of Christ applies to all of life. 

I wrote Gospel Education: Gospel Education: Jesus as Lord of the Classical Christian School for the disciples—and the disciple-makers—whom he has formed in love by the gospel and who desire to form godly children in turn. And my hope is that, through Christ, we’ll experience a beautiful marriage of the great and the small. 

This article has been adapted from Nate Walker’s book Gospel Education: Jesus as Lord of the Classical Christian School, published by Baker Books. In it he explains why Christians should embrace classical education for their children and shows how Christ organizes all aspects of a classical school—from its vision to its application of the seven liberal arts. 

Nate Walker is the pastor of Christ Church Bellingham (PCA) and one of the founders of Trinity Classical School in Bellingham, Washington. He is the author of The Deep Deep Love of Jesus: 50 Reasons for the Cross of Christ. He is married to Shannon and has five children.